The 2024 SEMA Show was packed with cool cars and cutting-edge tech, but one theme stood out for collision repairers: Moving the repair process to the 21st century.
This year highlighted how telematics is changing the game for vehicle connectivity, safety, and efficiency. From advanced tracking systems to smart data tools, the show was all about how telematics is making our rides smarter and safer, as well as making the post-collision process more seamless for all parties involved.
Entegral
Entegral, a provider of software solutions for the automotive repair industry which is owned by Enterprise Mobility, showcased its full product suite in an interactive and immersive demo at Resorts World Las Vegas. The event highlighted how Entegral's platform connects repair shops, insurance providers, and customers to streamline the automotive claims experience.
According to Entegral , the demo aimed to educate and engage Entegral customers, prospects, and partners across the auto insurance, OEM, fleet, and collision repair industries about how its global product platform connects people, systems and data to streamline the automotive claims experience. This was the first time that Entegral demonstrated the power of its global connected product offerings in North America.
One thing that many Entegral employees emphasized throughout the event was the configurability of the overall platform, allowing shops and insurance companies to integrate Entegral’s technology into their own apps and workflows.
The tour of their product suite began with the first notice of loss, with the company’s Smart Locator and Smart Assist solutions.
- Smart Assist uses AI-driven analysis to enhance efficiency from the first notice of loss to damage assessment and rental car selection.
- Smart Locator provides recommendations for repair shops. It integrates verified vendor certifications and capabilities into claims workflows, helping insurers match customers with qualified repair centers based on location, vehicle, and customer preferences.
After the customer’s vehicle is taken to a shop, in the repair workflow section of the demo, the body shop can provide updates on the repair and facilitate communication between the customer, shop, and insurance company through Entegral’s Assignment Management solution until the completion of the repair process while customers, through Entegral’s Consumer Repair Tracker, can know where their vehicle is in the repair process.
Entegral wasn’t the only business in Vegas during the SEMA Show showcasing how they can evolve the repair process. A lot of magic was happening right where the SEMA show was.
OEM Collision Repair Technology Summit
The second session of the OEM Collision Repair Technology Summit, presented by the Society of Collision Repair Specialists as part of its Repairer Driven Education sessions at the SEMA Show, introduced a curious audience to industry leaders in a panel discussion on "How Telematics Technologies are Evolving the Consumer Experience. Panelists included:
- Ryan McMahon, senior vice president of strategy and corporate development for Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT)
- John Eck, head of product – Accident Assistance, Global Strategy & Innovation for General Motors
- Hilary Cain, senior vice president of policy for the Alliance for Automotive Innovation
CMT is a telematics service provider focused on making roads and drivers safer. Its AI-driven platform, DriveWell Fusion, gathers sensor data from millions of devices, including smartphones, connected vehicles, and dashcams, to name a few. This data is then combined with contextual information to create a comprehensive view of vehicle and driver behavior.
For the collision repair industry, CMT offers significant benefits through its telematics technology. By providing real-time crash data, CMT helps streamline the claims process and improve the efficiency of collision repair operations. The technology can deliver information about a crash to insurers within minutes, allowing for quicker assessment and resolution, as McMahon explained in his presentation. This capability reduces cycle time, which is crucial for minimizing costs related to rental cars, storage, and the number of open files on adjusters' desks.
CMT's telematics data can also help collision repair facilities by providing visibility into crash severity, identifying the vehicle's change in velocity, and determining the point of impact and the degree of damage.
By leveraging this data from the customer's smartphone as they drive, collision repair shops can improve their operations and provide better service to their customers.
“Insurers continue to push in this direction because for them, time is directly money, whether that’s the storage costs or rental costs,” McMahon said.
CMT partners with several major American insurance companies, including State Farm, Liberty Mutual, Travelers, and others both domestically and internationally.
Eck introduced a new digital product called the GM Collision Assistance app, designed to help customers navigate the steps following a vehicle collision. This app provides additional support to consumers after their OnStar experience, offering a comprehensive guide through the post-collision process.
The goal of the GM Collision Assistance app, he said, is to reduce the stress and confusion that often follows a vehicle accident and get drivers back on the road more quickly and ensure that their vehicles are repaired to the highest standards.
When a collision is detected, the GM Collision Assistance app contacts the driver at the accident scene and helps guide them through the necessary steps. This includes documenting what occurred, obtaining the other driver's information, and choosing a certified GM Collision Repair Network facility. The app sends a pop-up notification to the driver's phone about 10 minutes after the crash, ensuring that it doesn't interfere with the immediate assistance provided by OnStar.
The app, Eck said, helps ensure the driver’s vehicle is repaired by professionals who understand the latest ADAS technologies and other advanced features. This can be particularly helpful for drivers who are unsure about where to take their vehicle for repairs.
“General Motors is not doing anything internally with this data,” Eck said. “All we see is aggregate numbers, total numbers of events that made it happen.” He also emphasized that the data is not sold, a common concern for consumers in the 2020s.
Down the Road (Phones Down, Please)
“Crash avoidance and post-crash care is where a lot of our companies want to go,” Cain said. She also added that the data can help determine who is at fault. “There’s a lot of ‘he said/she said,’ you know how this goes.”
Further data access also has more life-saving solutions, Cain proposed. Such as knowing how many people are involved in a crash, knowing the speed of the vehicles, direction of force, and other items of information that phone data can provide.
“That additional information can provide more robust situational awareness to first responders who may be responding to the scene of a crash,” she said.
She went on to explain how, as the use of data and technology progresses, it will have to flow with government policy. In the U.S., policymakers and lawmakers are aimed at protecting consumer data. Cain also commented that our current “notice and consent model,” like how a device might ask to save a password or proceed with an OS update, could play as a limitation. Data legislation is also propelled by fear of the Chinese government accessing private data of Americans, she said.
Cain proposed an idea where companies can simply use the data without requiring a customer to allow it manually under strict guidelines of use by parties using the data in the collision repair cycle. What comes next in how consumer phone data is not yet known, but Cain said one thing that anyone could make a safe bet on, especially in Las Vegas:
“The sense I get from our companies is that (telematics) is where a lot of the focus is right now. You’ve already seen some products in the market and you’re going to see more products.”
